Kernel 2.6.31 To Speed Up Linux Desktop 360
Dan Jones writes "As the Linux community looks forward to another kernel release, the kernel hackers have been working on improving the memory management so that the X desktop responsiveness is doubled under high memory pressure. The result is an improved desktop experience. Benchmarks on memory-tight desktops show clock time and major faults reduced by 50 per cent, and pswpin numbers (memory reads from disk) are reduced to about one-third. Another improvement coming with 2.6.31 is kernel mode-setting support for ATI Radeon graphics cards, enabling faster user switching and a more seamless startup experience. Peripheral developments that will also improve the Linux desktop experience include support for the new USB 3.0 specification and a new Firewire stack. Even minor Linux releases have heaps of new features these days!"
Been using .31, and I'm a fan. (Score:3, Informative)
ATI mode setting, well, sort of... (Score:4, Informative)
From the kernelnewbies article:
With the HD5850 and HD5870 weeks away (don't buy a new card till they're out, you'll hate yourself!), this means you have to be three GENERATIONS behind the curve for this yet unreleased kernel feature to be of use.
Re:*Another* FireWire stack? (Score:3, Informative)
It is not a new FireWire stack, rather the "second" stack that has been experimental for a few years is no longer marked experimental. However, the maintainer still says to use the old stack for many applications.
Re:Funny how Windows and Linux go opposites (Score:3, Informative)
The drivers *are* in userland (well there, is enough in the kernel to display basic images and text). KMS means the kernel can change video modes, which allows early boot splash screens with no "blink" transitions when X takes over and allows "bluescreens", that is, the kernel can print error messages to the screen even if X locks up.
Re:Even minor releases? (Score:5, Informative)
We won't: http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/linux-kernel/2008/7/15/2497614 [kerneltrap.org]
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:3, Informative)
FLV is a flash video format. Mplayer already plays FLVs just fine. This has little to do with flash video sites, which use SWF to create their own players for FLV content (and often the FLV location is obfuscated and keyed, so you need to interpret the SWF to get to it). It is impossible to get YouTube to work with only an FLV player. Crude hacks like using Adobe's plugin to download the video to /tmp and then playing it with mplayer aren't really viable for end-users.
The SWF format was completely closed until May 1, 2008 [wikipedia.org], and even now it's still missing bits and pieces. Gnash devs have had less than a year and a half to work with a real specification, so it's no surprise that they're still quite a ways behind the official Adobe Flash.
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:4, Informative)
Flash is by no means "simple". There are a bunch of different speficiations and sub-specifications to be implemented (ActionScript, FLV, RTMP, ...).
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Informative)
[citations needed]
EXA is the backend acceleration we use right now in X. It works.
Full EXA is provided for radeon, nouveau, and intel, the Big Three. A lot of esoteric chips are supported too. They might not be super-fast, but they're still fast enough to do nearly anything. (Getting that vaunted 1m glyphs/sec is tough though.)
Flash is a piece of shit. I most certainly can and will blame Adobe for not putting more than one person on the Linux Flash team, and I can point to the incomplete, buggy, largely hacked-up Gnash as an example of a software rasterizer that moves much faster than Flash despite also being lame.
Don't even get me started on Flash Video.
Re:That really seems to be the philosophy around h (Score:3, Informative)
On any decent machine (2Ghz+ with 1Gb+ RAM), I haven't had any problem with full screen flash. I did a while back, when it was buggier. Most of my machines have been 64 bit (Slamd64). For a while I ran the 32 bit Firefox just to have the Flash player work, but that's been resolved for a while with no complaints.